Last month, Ben van Beurden made his biggest bet on the North Sea for years. The Shell boss said the time was now ripe to ramp up investment in the ageing basin.

With American partner Exxon, the Anglo-Dutch giant is to splurge $1bn (£700m) on the Penguins field, building a colossal tanker to store crude and transport it to shore. The investment — the biggest in the North Sea since 2011 — will prolong the life of the project by a decade. “We see plenty of opportunity to grow in the North Sea,” said van Beurden last week.

That Shell is ploughing cash back into British fields after years of retrenchment is telling. Resurgent energy prices are pumping serious cash into Big Oil’s depleted coffers —…

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